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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Photoshelter BEWARE!
Marvin Gentry, Photographer
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Birmingham | AL | USA | Posted: 11:44 PM on 11.28.12 |
| ->> I am a user of Photoshelter but probably not much longer. Today I found out that customers had been downloading my photos without paying for them ever AFTER I contacted photoshelter and asked them if they were and I was told they were not. So I got suspicious today and called again and got told that yes they were downloading them and that I had set my permissions wrong, I said not to my understanding , the permission said downloads n/a which to me means NOT AVAILABLE, and photoshelter said that is correct but then again not correct. So I had 8 teams that do not have to buy there team photo because they downloaded them for FREE thanks to being told by a Photoshelter representative that they could not download the file. They told me they were sorry and they would credit my account for 3 months well that 90.00 , but what about the other $2,000.00 they cost me?? I know this is a rant but I am just saying be careful using them because they have some unclear methods on their site that could cost you money! and they DONT CARE if you were told wrong by one of there employees. |
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David Welker, Photographer, Assistant
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 12:46 AM on 11.29.12 |
->> Marvin,
Not to sound like a jerk here, but if the settings you had were set to allow the teams to download, I do not see the fault falling on PS here. I can't speak to the settings you actually had set, but is it possible that the settings were wrong in the first place, and you just didn't notice? I have done that a few times, but luckily have changed them before making the galleries live.
Maybe this is one of those things to chalk up as a learning experience and move on? |
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Todd Spoth, Photographer
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Houston | TX | USA | Posted: 2:45 AM on 11.29.12 |
| ->> READ THE MANUAL BRO! |
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Marvin Gentry, Photographer
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Birmingham | AL | USA | Posted: 8:03 AM on 11.29.12 |
| ->> I questioned the settings so I called them to make sure that they coudn't dowload and PS told me they could not download, they were looking at my site as I was talking to them and told me wrong! |
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Mike Last, Photographer, Assistant
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Toronto | ON | Canada | Posted: 8:07 AM on 11.29.12 |
| ->> If you were suspicious that this was happening in the first place, why didn't you logout of your PS account and check from the users perspective? |
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Marvin Gentry, Photographer
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Birmingham | AL | USA | Posted: 9:17 AM on 11.29.12 |
| ->> I did thats when I called them to double check and they told me it was not happening, and that the preferences were not setup that way. |
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Jamey Price, Photographer, Assistant
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Charlotte | NC | USA | Posted: 9:33 AM on 11.29.12 |
->> You have total and complete control over your images. You give trusted client access to.......TRUSTED CLIENTS!!!! I don't see at all how PS is at fault.
Secondly, you can look up that information yourself. Here's how.
Photoshelter.com -- login
--- "clients" tab
--- "download logs"
--- boom. done. Look at all that data! IP addresses. Image type. date and time. |
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Brian Garfinkel, Photographer, Assistant
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Philadelphia | PA | United States | Posted: 10:34 AM on 11.29.12 |
->> Marvin,
Could you elaborate on your situation?
Did you uncover a defect in the Photoshelter application?
Was a label unclear that led to unintentional downloads?
Did the downloads appear in the "Download Log"?
I have not experienced any unexpected downloads while using the following features.
Trusted Client Downloads
Password protected downloads
User right assignment
Thanks.
-Brian |
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John Stoops, Photographer
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Seoul | FL | South Korea | Posted: 7:44 AM on 02.19.13 |
->> I realize this is a little bit older of a post, but I greatly appreciate the information.
I was considering contacting Photoshelter. |
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Brian Blanco, Photographer
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Tampa / Sarasota | FL | USA | Posted: 8:13 AM on 02.19.13 |
->> John,
Are saying that based on the "information" in this thread that you're now no longer considering using Photoshelter?
If so, that's a shame; because Photoshelter is one of the most useful, and reliable, tools I use in my business. I'd happily pay double what they charge me (please don't tell Allen) and I'm quite certain that the 'failure' in this case falls squarely in the "user error" camp.
Remember, just because some guy on the internet says something sucks doesn't exactly make it so.
-Blanco |
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Marvin Gentry, Photographer
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Birmingham | AL | USA | Posted: 8:26 AM on 02.19.13 |
| ->> Photoshelter is a very good tool. I wrote this as I was pissed off at them or actually the one person that was suppose to be customer support that must have been trying to Facebook and I interrupted them and they didn't have time to deal with me. I do know I lost some money due to the screw up but they adjusted is somewhat I think it should have been doubled. But other than this ONE time I am totally happy with them. |
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Chuck Liddy, Photographer, Photo Editor
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PLANET | EARTH | | Posted: 10:09 AM on 02.19.13 |
| ->> Damn Marvin, I hope you never get mad at me MORE than once. That was a pretty serious beat down you gave PS. |
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Scott Serio, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Colora | MD | USA | Posted: 11:06 AM on 02.19.13 |
->> Let's all be honest. Photoshelter went through some upgrades and the product that came out the back end left some things to be desired. Like...searchability. Something that was included in the old upload format with a check box, is not a totally different procedure.
That said, the folks at Photoshelter have worked their rear ends off to make a great product and address whatever issues are found. When they really screwed up on Phase 1 of the big upgrade, they apologized profusely.
Right now, they are the best tool out there. I think the only negative they have is that their slideshows are flash-based. If they get rid of that, they are the total package for me and I can dump the other site I am using for slideshows.
But, don't just willy-nilly say you won't try Photoshelter. For the money, they are, by far, the best image management tool out there. |
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Craig Mitchelldyer, Photographer, Assistant
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Portland | OR | USA | Posted: 11:50 AM on 02.19.13 |
->> Photoshelter is the best thing ever. period. nothing can even come close. I'll be with them until they close or I close, neither of which is happening anytime soon.
This one thing, is not even their fault. |
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Marvin Gentry, Photographer
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Birmingham | AL | USA | Posted: 12:32 PM on 02.19.13 |
| ->> Chuck I deserved that! |
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Perrone Ford, Photographer
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Tallahassee | FL | US | Posted: 1:55 PM on 02.19.13 |
->> I am a photoshelter user, but I am also a SmugMug user. I wish I could use one or the other, but I can't. There are numerous things about Photoshelter that really don't work the way I'd like them to. One of the primary ones is the gallery displaying images at too small a size. I'd LOVE to be able to specify full frame previews.
But the larger issue for me, is the issue of printing. The print ordering options pale in comparison to Smug and some others. For those who don't need to deal with prints, this is easily overlooked, but a large part of my photography business is prints. Even their best options of BWC (VERY good printer by the way) falls down when large prints are ordered because they do NOT flat ship, but roll the prints in tubes. Every other vendor I use flat ships. I have to use ROES with BWC to get that, which totally kills my online order process.
So for client review, Photoshelter is killer. The Lightbox feature alone makes it worth me staying with them. But the backend of ordering and such, I have to put that entire process on Smugmug. |
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John Stoops, Photographer
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Seoul | FL | South Korea | Posted: 3:06 PM on 02.19.13 |
->> Please let me clarify.
I will look at using photoshelter a little more carefully to insure my images are not used without permission.
I will admit this posting is the first negative thing I have heard about Photoshelter and thus comes as a big surprise.
They do some very impressive things on the web.
Anyway, thanks again. |
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Craig Mitchelldyer, Photographer, Assistant
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Portland | OR | USA | Posted: 3:21 PM on 02.19.13 |
| ->> Perrone, do you know that you can use pretty much any lab you want in the country via the print network on photoshelter? Also, I believe you can customize your gallery display to display images whatever size you want. PS is always adding new features to meet demands. If they don't do something you want, call them and they will tell you how to do it, or put it on the list and I would bet it would be done eventually. Not to sound too much like a PS honk, but really paying for two services seems not worth it. |
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Perrone Ford, Photographer
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Tallahassee | FL | US | Posted: 3:48 PM on 02.19.13 |
->> Craig, I have not found a way to have the galleries display at full size. If you (or anyone else) know's how, that would be most appreciated.
As for printers, I'll have to look at that a bit more, but looking at their bundled services, and having sent test prints to each of them, it wasn't immediately obvious how to use other printers in an integrated way.
Then there's that whole charging for disk space thing, which other services don't do...
Thanks,
-P |
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Craig Mitchelldyer, Photographer, Assistant
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Portland | OR | USA | Posted: 4:56 PM on 02.19.13 |
| ->> you sent test prints to over 1000 labs? |
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Perrone Ford, Photographer
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Tallahassee | FL | US | Posted: 5:30 PM on 02.19.13 |
->> Well,
I'm not sure how you sell products, but when I go to create pricing and a pricing profile I get the option of:
AdoramaPix,BWC, & EZPrints in the US. Anything else in the US is "self-fulfilled".
Now, based on what you say, perhaps I can custom create my own pricing list, my own print products, and custom create a vendor. And I just checked and none of my normal labs is on the listed vendors. No WHCC, no BayPhoto, etc.
I may find the motivation at some point to try to set all this up custom, but for now, it's much easier (and cheaper) elsewhere. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 5:38 PM on 02.19.13 |
| ->> Perrone - Typically you would either customize one of the stock themes, create your own theme, or use your own site with Photoshelter integrated into it (ie, a graph paper press wordpress theme). |
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